Clea Duvall

[2] John Carpenter has given us a handful of gems over the years, but Ghosts of Mars is not one of them. The movie’s too exotic for its own good. It starts with some quick but tedious exposition, then plops us off in a confusing, alienating environment with little to latch onto. The story has something to do with ghosts and a bunch of leftover …

[7] Robert Rodriguez directs from a script polished by Kevin Williamson in this fun high school body snatchers horror flick. Piper Laurie, Jon Stewart, Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, and Famke Janssen play the title characters, members of an Ohio high school who are the first victims of a parasitic alien invasion. Once the brainwashed grownups start infecting the student body, it’s up to …

[8] Score another point for Ben Affleck. I never much cared for him as an actor, but between this film and 2007’s Gone Baby Gone, the guy has shown us some serious directing chops. Argo is the true story of how the U.S. Government worked with Hollywood to rescue six Americans who escaped the U.S. Embassy during the 1980 Iranian hostage crisis. Affleck plays the …